Short Stuff: Third Man Syndrome

People who’ve found themselves in life-or-death situations with their endurance at its limit have reported sensing another presence with them, urging them to continue on and survive. No one knows what the heck is going on here but it sure is interesting. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Granger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory, costs climb. Too little, production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on hand inventory helps you get what you need, when you need it, so you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

• 1:09Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's just us right now, but that's okay, because we have a third and fourth man with us today in the form of Jerry and Dave.

• 1:20Speaker 03

  That's right. I feel I sense their presence.

• 1:23Josh Clark?

  I do too. And they're guiding us on, they're saying, come on, you guys, you can finish the short stuff. It's going to be a good one. I can feel it, Chuck.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  I think we're going to be okay.

• 1:33Josh Clark?

  We just demonstrated a really weird phenomenon, pretty well, if you ask me. I think we did a great job just now. Everyone's saying so.

• 1:42Josh Clark?

  But we, we just demonstrated this weird phenomenon called the third man syndrome. There's an author named John Geiger, who for some reason changed syndrome to factor, but that's typically why it's called this third man syndrome. And like I said, it's weird, Chuck. Take it away.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it has nothing to do with the movie, The Third Man.

• 2:01Josh Clark?

  Which was good.

• 2:02Speaker 03

  Great movie. And immediately when you sent this along and I saw the title, I thought it might have something to do with that.

• 2:09Speaker 03

  And it doesn't have to be a man. It's really should be the third person syndrome.

• 2:13Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  But it is this phenomenon that has been, you know, talked about by many people over hundreds of years where someone is in dire straits. Oftentimes, it's like somebody sort of like a mountaineer or somebody in the wilderness that's lost and struggling to survive, but not always, as we'll see. And when they're at their sort of worst moment, maybe worst low point, they get a third, a sense that someone else is there. And again, it's not always the third person. If they're alone, it's just technically the second person.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  But it's just somebody there kind of urging them on. But it's not just like, oh, I got this weird feeling like it's a real, serious, tangible thing.

• 2:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like whatever sense you have when there's somebody sitting next to you and they actually are, there is a person sitting next to you. It seems to be the exact same type of feeling and in level of feeling and all that. Yeah, it's not like this weird kind of like thought a little bit here, there. It's like sensing another presence. And the first person to ever really kind of document this was Ernest Shackleton. Surely he was not the first person to experience this, but he, he was the first person to write about it. And his experience is just nuts in and of itself.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, we talked about this guy before. It was a British expedition to Antarctica in 1914 slash 15, trying to get to the South Pole. It was his third try and he's trying to establish a base there. And his ship got trapped in sea ice. They tried to kind of ride it out, but eventually the ice kind of came together. And I mean, this just shows how forceful like creeping ice can be. It kind of crushed the boat.

• 3:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  And they abandoned ship, set up camp on other ice and stayed there initially for four months on this ice.

• 4:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, waiting for the ice to break up enough to try to make an attempt by whaling boat over to Elephant Island, which is the closest island. And they made it. They rode, they rode for six days before they reached Elephant Island, which was great. They weren't on the ice anymore, but they were on a deserted island.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Which is probably cold.

• 4:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm thinking it's pretty cool too.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:29Josh Clark?

  And again, this is 1914. They're not like, you know, picking up the sat phone and saying like, hey, can somebody come get us? Like, they've got a real problem here. So they're stranded on this deserted island. And the closest place where there's other people where they actually can get in touch and say, hey, somebody come get us. Is a whaling station on South Georgia Island. And that's 800 miles away. Um, so Ernest Shackleton says, gotta keep going. Whittles down, uh, to a few men, I think six, five or six other people. And they actually rode 800 miles from Antarctica to South Georgia Island.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they get there 16 days later. Uh, it turns out they landed on the wrong side of the island because the winds blew them off course. And so this guy was undaunted still. Uh, he took two guys. I think you see where this is headed, even though the math is still wrong. And they made the rest of the way, uh, on foot. It's about 18 miles or, or 30 kilometers. And through some pretty treacherous, uh, conditions, um, took about 36 hours. They finally get there. And everyone ends up being rescued. Like, that's the good news. Um, but this is that last push is when Shackleton feels the presence of this additional person urging them on.

• 5:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because this is like, they've reached the limit of their endurance and they're still going on. And so, um, Shackleton sensed it, but he never said anything about it until he wrote his book, um, South. Uh, it was published in 1919. But he did say something to the other two people who were with him. One was Captain Worsley and Worsley said, yeah, I had the same feeling, actually. And so did Kreen, the other guy on this expedition. They all sensed another person, in this case, a fourth person with them. Kind of basically comforting them to some, to some degree. Um, so that seemed in and of itself pretty cool. And I guess the word of this got out because T S Eliot.

• 6:28Josh Clark?

  He's frequently cited as the person who's, who coined the term third man syndrome. As far as I can tell, no one knows who actually. Took this T. S. Eliot poem and turned it into Third Man Syndrome, but it actually, it did come indisputably from this T. S. Eliot poem from 1922.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, uh, well, "The Wasteland" was the poem and, um, he was, again, he was wrong in the math. He should have called it "The Fourth Man", but this is kind of the funniest part. T. S. Eliot said that he couldn't remember who, um, who inspired this, like which expedition it was when asked, you know, why the number of people was four and not three, or three and not four, rather.

• 7:07Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Um, and I, I'm feeling a little poetic today. Chuck, do you mind if I read this?

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Oh, sure.

• 7:14Josh Clark?

  This is from T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," three words. "Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together. But when I look ahead up the white road, there is always another one walking beside you, gliding wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded. I do not know whether a man or a woman, but who is that on the other side of you? Answer me."

• 7:40Josh Clark?

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  I'm snapping, by the way.

• 7:42Josh Clark?

  I say we take a break and let everybody in stunned silence absorb all that.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 8:01Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it all starts with a great deal on the truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 8:11Speaker 04

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the Off-Road Ready Tacoma or Half-Ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 8:24Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you can trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 9:02Speaker 05

  Snoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness? I'm Shaquille O'Neal and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about Zepbound Trisepotide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.

• 9:18Speaker 06

  Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains trisepotide and should not be used with other trisepotide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction.

• 10:03Speaker 06

  Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plant-to-be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.

• 10:25Speaker 05

  Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  All right, so that's the Third Man Syndrome, Shackleton's version. But it's happened a bunch, like we said. There was a collection by John Geiger called "The Third Man Factor" that you mentioned earlier from 2008, where he dug up a bunch of these stories. And we're gonna go through some of them right now.

• 10:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I, yeah, I mean, it's quite a, quite a feat that he got all these together because they were definitely few and far between. Um, one of the first ones that he mentions is a guy named Frank Smythe, who made a solo attempt at his summit Everest. He would have been the first back in 1933 and he got close, but he didn't make it and he realized he had to turn back. And his second man during this, um, this attempt was so real to him that at one point he actually turned to offer them food before he realized that there was no one there. So like this can be a pretty tangible presence, a tangible intangible presence, essentially.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I've seen this in movies, you know, and they don't call it out as, you know, third man syndrome, but I've definitely seen these scenes, you know, where there's an unseen person and they look and then they're not there, you know?

• 11:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  But it, but in a comforting way, not like, uh, well, I was gonna spoil that Nicole Kidman movie, but I guess I won't do that.

• 11:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Not in a horror movie kind of way.

• 11:55Josh Clark?

  No, for sure.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Uh, but there was another guy, a climber, again, named Joe Simpson. Uh, this is 1985. He was climbing in the Peruvian Andes and he broke his leg. So he was in really bad shape. And he wrote a book called Touching the Void, where he talked about obeying this voice, like guiding him. And a lot of times that's what happens. It's not just like, you can do it, you can do it, but like, go this way kind of thing. And if you're in this situation, after reading all this stuff, I would be wise to go in whatever direction your invisible person is telling you to go.

• 12:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Obey the voice, I think, is the upshot of all this. Yeah. He, uh, he was guided to safety by his voice. And enough of these are mountaineers that I started to think, maybe the cold has something to do with this. But this has also happened to other people who were not in the cold, who were in totally different situations. Um, very famously out of the nine 11 attacks, two people who survived reported experiencing third man syndrome. One was Ron DiFrancesco, who was the last person out of the south tower before it collapsed. He was led down while everybody else was going up and actually went through flames, fire, like three stories of fire to get to safety. And it was because he was being urged

• 13:07Josh Clark?

  on. And then there was another woman, Janelle Guzman McMillan, who was actually trapped in the rubble of the north tower and she had a similar experience too.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, you know, again, it's, um,

• 13:21Speaker 03

  It feels like it might be like in the movie, like a family member or something. And sometimes it seems like that can happen like, I know, wasn't there one of these where? Yeah, it was a geologist who was on a cave dive and lost her guideline with 20 minutes left in her air tank and she felt her husband, Rob, who had died. So her dead husband had died in a diving accident a few weeks prior. So he appears. So sometimes it's like a known individual.

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And Janelle Guzman McMillan, I read she named, she didn't think hers was a family member, but she considered it a guardian angel and its name was Paul.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 13:59Josh Clark?

  So they do get names sometimes, even if you don't know them.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  I would name mine.

• 14:03Josh Clark?

  What would you name yours?

• 14:04Speaker 03

  I don't know. It depends. I think it would hit me in a moment, but it seems like the respectful thing to do and not just say, hey, you, thanks for all that.

• 14:11Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah. And just a little word of advice, if you can't come up with a name, just go with Tim.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Tim? That's pretty good. Scientifically, I mean, you might be wondering like, well, what's, what's happening here? And no, no one really knows. It's kind of one of those things where they think it may be some like hardwired innate instinct that just kind of kicks in. You know, obviously you can't study something like this. And if it is hardwired, we may all have it, but you're just luckily, most of us aren't ever in that situation, you know?

• 14:42Josh Clark?

  Right. Like you, you not only have to be in this limit of your endurance, life or death situation, you also have to survive it to come back and tell everybody about it too. So you would imagine like this is a pretty small population of people, right? I mean, clearly just from the few stories that John Geiger was able to collect. Did you see the thing about the bicameral mind?

• 15:04Speaker 03

  No.

• 15:04Josh Clark?

  Theory? So remember our episode on the bicameral mind from Julie and James? And basically just for people who aren't familiar, this is a hypothesis that all the way up until like the Bronze Age, people hadn't fully become conscious like we think of consciousness today. And so the voices in their head that we call an inner dialogue, where we know we're talking to ourselves, to them, this was the gods speaking to them, guiding them, instructing them. So this idea is the third man syndrome is kind of this vestigial, bicameral experience that people used to have, where what seems like something outside of your mind is helping you, urging you on, guiding you, but really it's just another part of your mind that gets kicked in.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love it, which kind of jives with the first theory. Anyway, you know, it's not like that that doesn't cancel it out, right?

• 15:56Josh Clark?

  No, there's no canceling going on here.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, good.

• 16:01Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 16:02Speaker 03

  I nothing else. Hopefully this instinct is within all of us because I wouldn't mind a pal urging me on in the end.

• 16:09Josh Clark?

  For sure. Yes. But hopefully no one listening ever has to experience it because it sounds like it's pretty rough to get there.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 16:16Josh Clark?

  Short Stuff is out.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 16:38Speaker 05

  Snoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness, I'm Shaquille O'Neal, and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about Zepbound trisepotide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.

• 16:53Speaker 06

  Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains trisepotide and should not be used with other trisepotide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pans or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, tell your doctor. Doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic

• 17:38Speaker 06

  reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plant to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulphonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.

• 18:01Speaker 05

  Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbound.lily.com.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.